This week, a video surfaced of a church in Los Angeles that had several youth perform a dance to Jay-Z’s now popular song, The Story of OJ. And not to be be outdone, but the entire message was also labeled, The Story of OJ! To be fair, I visited the church’s Facebook page and listened to the pastor’s entire sermon. I wanted to have a greater understanding as to why they would allow something like this to happen in the local church, but sadly I was left more confused than before.
In the message the pastor uses Genesis 25 as a text, the story of Jacob and Esau. The point of the text, as he put it, was the church doesn’t celebrate change like the world does. He stated that the world celebrates the progression people make in their life as marked by the millions of Albums that Jay Z sold. This was in comparison to Gospel artist James Fortune who openly confessed to being an abusive spouse and later apologized for it, but did not sell as many albums as a result. The message consisted of a lot of ‘God said’, blessing, checks coming in the mail, etc. While the youth dancing to the Jay-Z song laced with vulgarity is a huge problem in itself, the bigger problem was the lack of faithful exegetical biblical teaching of the Word of God.
Sadly, the longing for millennials in the church has sent some of us over the edge. Could you imagine the Apostle Paul today saying, let’s bring in the latest Greek philosophers in order to draw the Greeks among us. Paul said this about his method, I seek to proclaim nothing among you except Christ and him crucified. Now, Paul became all things to all men that he might reach them. What does this mean? Paul’s relationships was diverse, but for the reason that men may encounter the Gospel of Jesus Christ. If they were Jew or Greek, Paul proclaimed Christ to them. He encountered them where they were in their world and still proclaimed Christ and Him crucified.
Our desire for Mellinials must not move us away from the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. Pastor, peach the text faithfully. Make it plain for the people who God has put in front of you to hear. Proclaim the sovereign God who sent his son to die on the cross for our sin. You don’t need hype or gimmicks; only the text! Maybe this fall, actually preach through an entire book of the Bible. Condition your people to desire the full meal of the word of God, not candy coated self-help messages that will anchor them to the world instead of Christ.
Pastor, if you love mellinals, give them the word, love them, and make disciples! If it was good enough for the Apostles, it should be good enough for us!
“And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God” (1 Co 2:1–5).
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Amen.